View: Is consensus or disruption a path to good governance?

View: Is consensus or disruption a path to good governance?

View: Is consensus or disruption a path to good governance? ByShishir Gupta Feb 22, 2025 01:48 PM IST Share Via Copy Link Donald Trump’s disruptive politics may or may not deliver, but bureaucratic accountability is key to faster policy execution in India.

New Delhi: Continuing with his style of disruptive governance, US President Donald Trump on Friday fired General Charles Brown Jr from the apex military post of Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, and named Lt Gen Dan Caine as his successor subject to Senate confirmation. On the same day, Kashyap Patel was sworn in as the ninth Director of FBI, which is equivalent to India’s Intelligence Bureau and Central Bureau of Investigation.

PM Narendra Modi with council of ministers.(File)

In his final term as President, Trump is making rapid changes in government and governance structures, keeping in mind his promise to his Republican electorate and the political retribution meted out to him personally by the previous Biden administration. Given that India is the world’s largest and the US the world’s richest democracy and the two are natural allies, can the disruptive model work in India rather than the consensus model for better governance and deliveries is the million dollar question.

While Prime Minister Narendra Modi believes in building institutions, running a steady ship and disrupting without destroying, the question needs to be actually answered by the Indian military and civilian bureaucracy—which still has colonial DNA and mindset.

Despite repeated reminders, the Modi government faces a pendency of files and an indecisive and non-committed bureaucracy, which does not seem passionate enough to work for the Indian people, particularly entrepreneurs. The Indian bureaucracy, including intelligence, is a firm believer in processes, not results, as a result of which implementation of government decisions often suffers.

The flip side is that the same bureaucracy delivered on the removal of Article 370 and Article 35 A under the iron hand of PM Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah. The same bureaucracy has nearly wiped out Maoist insurgency in Central India, with financial inclusion reaching the poorest of the poor in the country. But all this has been due to a few good men and women.

The fact is that while bureaucratic leadership at the Centre is high on integrity (something that cannot be said of States), the lack of initiative is slowing down the momentum. This is despite PM Modi openly telling them that they will be protected if the decision is in the national interest. It is not the lack of resources but the non-resourcefulness of the bureaucracy which is holding back India, as red tape is hard-wired into their DNA. For them, the sanctity of the process is more important than a disruptive decision that saves government money and brings relief to the public. File is the king at the end of the day.

A classic example of bureaucratic red-tape is in the implementation of PM Modi’s vision of “Aatmanirbhar Bharat” whose objective is to make India a military-industrial power with a push to domestic manufacturing and self-reliance in high end defence technologies. While the Indian private sector is willing to participate in “Make in India”, it cannot be investing huge sums of money into manufacturing if the government is not willing to buy from them. The Indian defence procurement manual runs into more than 600 pages of bureaucratic gobbledygook with hardly any concessions to promote domestic private sector in global tenders. No wonder, the Indian armed forces particularly the Indian Air Force is frustrated with both the DRDO and the HAL.

While it is nobody’s case that Indian bureaucracy should be done away with, it is high time that at least the syllabus of entrance exams and the subsequent training plan for the future bureaucrats was brought up to date. Similarly, the method of mid-term assessment of bureaucrats must be rigorous as nearly all at the senior level have been graded 10/10, as a result of which there is hardly any risk-taking capability at the top for all have followed the safe route. The Indian politicians face electoral exams every five years but the bureaucracy has a straight run of a life-time with all the perks and privileges. India may be perhaps the only country in the world barring its colonial brothers and sisters where the Indian bureaucracy is housed in the toniest Lutyens Delhi while the public lives in the periphery amidst encroachment, dirt and pot-holed roads.

If India has to achieve its stated objective of “Jagad Guru”, then the bureaucracy must work in synergy with the political leadership and must implement decisions without reservations. After all, bureaucrats are not the only repository of knowledge in the country and not the only nationalists. One of the first requisites of a global high table is self-reliance in national security and manufacturing. You cannot make a mark in the world on borrowed equipment, ideas, terminologies and information.